Canada Border Services Agency finds American potato dumping into British Columbia likely to resume if the 1984 duties expire
The agency published its reasons on 11 September for a determination that keeps a 42-year-old anti-dumping order alive on American table potatoes sold into one province, and hands the Canadian International Trade Tribunal a decision due by 4 February 2027. No Canadian newsroom that draws on public or regulated money appears to have reported it; the account that did exist came from an Oregon farm paper, and it told the American side of the story without the Canadian numbers.
What funded newsrooms reported
Canada's funded newsrooms - the outlets that draw on public or regulated money, from CBC's parliamentary appropriation to the Canadian Heritage programs, the journalism labour tax credit and the Google payments made under the Online News Act that carry the private titles - do not appear to have included this one at any stage. Searches of CBC, The Globe and Mail, CTV News, Global News, Postmedia's British Columbia titles and The Canadian Press for the determination of 28 August, the reasons published on 11 September, and the Tribunal's own news release announcing the review in April turned up no report from any of them. That is a search result rather than a certainty: a print item or a piece behind a paywall could sit outside it, and Second Reading did not find one.
This is not a case of a desk covering the story thinly. It is a case of the file passing through a federal agency, a federal tribunal and a provincial marketing commission across five months without a general-audience Canadian account of it existing at all - while the same period produced no shortage of Canadian trade-remedy coverage in the other direction, on American and Chinese duties aimed at Canadian producers.
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal announced the review itself on 1 April 2026 and set out the February 2027 deadline in its own release, so the peg was public and dated five months before the determination landed.
What was already public
- 1.The Canada Border Services Agency determined on 28 August 2026 that “the expiry of the order is likely to result in the continuation or resumption of dumping of the subject goods originating in or exported from the United States of America”, and published its Statement of Reasons on 11 September 2026.CBSA, Notice of conclusion of expiry review investigation: Whole Potatoes (POT 2026 ER), 28 August 2026
- 2.The order covers whole potatoes from the United States for use or consumption in British Columbia only. It excludes seed potatoes, imports arriving between 1 May and 31 July each year, red, yellow and exotic varieties regardless of packaging, and white and russet potatoes in 50-lb cartons in count sizes 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 - exclusions the Tribunal carved out in September 2005 after 21 years of blanket duties.CBSA, Notice of initiation of expiry review investigation: Whole Potatoes (POT 2026 ER), 1 April 2026
- 3.Duties assessed during the period of review ran $1,222 in the 2022 crop year, $11,378 in 2023 and $22,700 in 2024 before jumping to $716,814 between 1 August and 31 December 2025. The crop year runs 1 August to 30 April because imports from 1 May to 31 July fall outside the order.CBSA, Statement of Reasons - Expiry review determination: Whole potatoes (POT 2026 ER), 11 September 2026
- 4.Anti-dumping duty applies where American potatoes are sold into British Columbia below normal values the agency sets by packaging format, running from $40.41 to $45.12 per hundredweight.CBSA, Whole potatoes: Measures in force
- 5.The agency rested its conclusion on decreasing overall demand for potatoes, persistent oversupply in the American market, a strong inverse relationship between potato supply and selling prices, the proximity of major American producers to British Columbia and their established distribution channels, the absence of any other trade measure during the period of review, and dumping that continued while the order was in force.CBSA, Statement of Reasons - Expiry review determination: Whole potatoes (POT 2026 ER), 11 September 2026
- 6.The British Columbia Vegetable Marketing Commission filed a case brief and reply submission supporting continuation. One American exporter, Allied Potato Northwest Inc. of Pasco, Washington, filed against it, arguing that British Columbia does not produce processing potatoes in sufficient quantity to meet year-round demand and that its own exports had not been dumped. Four named importers - Naturally Home Grown Foods Ltd., BC Fresh Vegetables Inc., Thomas Fresh Inc. and The Produce Terminal - responded but filed no case briefs.CBSA, Statement of Reasons - Expiry review determination: Whole potatoes (POT 2026 ER), 11 September 2026
- 7.British Columbia is treated as a regional market under the Special Import Measures Act, which requires that producers there sell all or almost all of their production of like goods in that market and that demand there is not to any substantial degree supplied by producers elsewhere in Canada. The agency noted the Tribunal found in 2021 that shipments from other provinces did not, to any substantial degree, supply British Columbia demand, and that the Tribunal will revisit the question in its own review.CBSA, Statement of Reasons - Expiry review determination: Whole potatoes (POT 2026 ER), 11 September 2026
- 8.The Statement of Reasons makes no mention of the National Potato Council and records no submission rejected as deficient. On the agency's own account, one American exporter responded to the exporter questionnaire.CBSA, Statement of Reasons - Expiry review determination: Whole potatoes (POT 2026 ER), 11 September 2026
What the independents said
Outside that funding - no appropriation, no Heritage program, no journalism labour tax credit, no Online News Act money - the only newsroom account of the review to surface was American. Brad Carlson reported in Capital Press, the Salem, Oregon farm paper, on 28 August, the day of the determination, that the National Potato Council had accused Canadian authorities of imposing procedural barriers that keep American growers out of the review. Kam Quarles, the Council's chief executive, was quoted saying that “though an extremely thorough data submission has been provided by these growers, if any small item is deemed to be insufficient by the Canadian authorities, the entirety of the submission is rejected”, and that American growers “spend hundreds of hours compiling detailed data to participate in these reviews in good faith”. The Council's own statement, published the day before, put the same complaint on the record and framed the order as a 40-year-old measure American growers cannot fairly contest under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.
For everybody the order actually binds, the news travelled through customs brokers rather than journalism. Willson International circulated the initiation notice to importers on 24 April with the questionnaire deadline of 11 May and the dates the agency would report; Livingston International had told the same audience in January that an administrative review had set new normal values for Allied Potato, and reminded importers to tell their brokerage whether goods carry anti-dumping duty. Omnitrans and PCB ran comparable bulletins. These are client advisories, not reporting - but they are what reached the importers and growers with money at stake.
The trade press has covered this order before. Spudman reported the Tribunal's September 2005 decision stripping duties from red, yellow and exotic varieties and from certain 50-lb cartons - the exclusions still written into the product definition today - and quoted the Washington State Potato Commission asking “how the CITT could find injury to the B.C. growers when they have been and are projected to remain profitable”. Nothing comparable ran this time.
- Brad Carlson, Capital Press — National Potato Council accuses Canada of blocking B.C. trade review
- National Potato Council — National Potato Council Challenges Canadian Bureaucratic Hurdles Silencing U.S. Growers in B.C. Anti-Dumping Review
- Willson International — Notice of Initiation of Expiry Review Investigation: Whole Potatoes
- Livingston International — CBSA concludes administrative review of whole potato SIMA case
- Spudman — Canadian Tribunal Makes Concessions to Washington Potato Growers
The gap
The funded newsrooms did not include the determination at all, and so did not include the figures in it - the $752,114 assessed over the period of review, the $716,814 of that falling in five months, or the fact that a federal agency has just found dumping likely to resume in a provincial market that still took $27.6 million of American potatoes while the order was in force.
The accounts outside that funding carried the American growers' procedural complaint and the filing deadlines but not the agency's findings, and none of them set the complaint against what the Statement of Reasons actually records: no mention of the National Potato Council, no submission rejected as deficient, and one American exporter on the file.
The caveat — against our own framing
The case against this issue's framing is strong. A SIMA expiry-review determination that continues a 42-year-old order is close to the definition of a non-event: $752,114 in duties over three and a half years is a rounding error beside the softwood, canola and mushroom duties aimed at Canadian producers that ran as live stories in the same months, and no editor triaging a news list owes this one a reporter. The determination is also not the decision that matters - the Canada Border Services Agency only ruled on whether dumping would resume, and the Tribunal's injury ruling, due 4 February 2027, is the one with consequences, so a desk that waits for February is exercising judgement rather than looking away. Nor should the American complaint be taken at face value: the National Potato Council is an interested party, its charge that Canadian authorities discard entire submissions over technicalities appears nowhere in the agency's reasons, and Second Reading could not confirm it against the record. And the duty spike that looks dramatic here - $716,814 in five months, while import values fell to $2.1 million - is not explained in the reasons, and could as easily reflect a change in which importers were buying, or in the normal values applied to them, as a surge in dumping.
Sources
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